Medical personnel are generally required to wear special garments. In the operating room, for example, such personnel generally wear operating room gowns. These garments generally cover substantially all of the wearer's body except for the hands, feet and head.
The purpose of these garments is two fold, both to provide a barrier for protection of the patient and a barrier for protection of the medical personnel. One disadvantage to the medical garment is that it serves not only as a potential barrier to transmission of fluids, germs and the like, but also as a “thermal” heat barrier. Thus, these garments trap heat generated by the wearer.
In many cases, these garments may result in the wearer becoming undesirably hot. Some measures have been employed to counter-act this problem. For example, in the case of an operating room, medical personnel may be located near bright, heat generating lights. The medical personnel may quickly overheat, risking performance of the medical procedure. As a result, it is common practice to cool the operating room to a very low temperature. This, however, has associated problems or risks. First, it is expensive to maintain the operating room at a low temperature. More importantly, the patient, who must be at least partially uncovered for the procedure, is subjected to the low temperatures. At low temperatures, the patient's heart rate slows and blood pressure decreases. In the case of surgery, such body conditions are generally undesirable.
Some attempts have been made to address these issues, but all have a variety of problems and disadvantages. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,349,412 to Dean discloses a medical cooling vest. This vest holds a liquid coolant. Problems with this vest configuration include that the medical personnel must still wear their medical garments over the vest, such that the vest adds an entire additional layer of bulk. This reduces mobility of the wearer and adds another layer of insulating material to the wearer which counteracts the effects of the vest.